Why would a vendor just not reply to an offer on their property?

NameUnavailable

I get control and put the pressure on them - say the offer is open for 3 days or you are moving on. Or, even better, go back to say after much careful consideration you are reducing your offer to £X

BungalowBel

Albermarle said:

housebuyer143 said:

I made a lowish offer once and the seller didn't refuse it, just took the house off the market 🤣🤣 
It was strange, but some people are strange. 


24 hours isn't long though.

Yes as they used to say where I am from ' There's nowt so queer as folk' 

...and as they finish it off in the Black Country'....apart from thee and me, and even thee's a bit strange'. 

EssexHebridean

I say this not for it to be taken as "being rude" - and indeed it will not be. In this instance it sounds like perhaps your anxiety was promoted more from a gut feeling that things weren't quite as they seemed, and indeed that was the case, however, it also reveals that perhaps your expectations aren't quite aligned with the process currently.

If you are intending to enter in to this process assuming that everything will be immediate, you are going to achieve a few things.
- Your own stress levels are going to be far higher than they need to be - buying and selling houses is stressful - but there are ways of making it less so
- Your seller's stress levels are also going to be higher than needed - see above
- The possibility of your seller deciding that they don't want to proceed with you as they feel constantly under pressure will be increased - this could well be after you have spent money on searches, survey etc.
- Your solicitor - while still doing everything correctly, may well not be so keen to be more helpful than straight professionalism demands. They will NOT be pushed into doing things immediately where in fact time is needed to review things, get correct responses, and check things with sellers solicitors or lender, for example, and an attempt to insist that they do so will be politely (probably icily politely) stonewalled. If you push too hard, they may even decline to act further - leaving you in a poor position in the middle of a transaction. 

Setting clear expectations is fine - but expecting everyone else to work at a speed you are demanding when that may not suit them is not only not fine, it's a recipe to get yourself labeled as a difficult buyer by all other parties involved. My best advice would be to take a breath, chill a bit, and adjust to the fact that buying a property doesn't happen overnight. 

Section62

EssexHebridean said:

....

- Your solicitor - while still doing everything correctly, may well not be so keen to be more helpful than straight professionalism demands. They will NOT be pushed into doing things immediately where in fact time is needed to review things, get correct responses, and check things with sellers solicitors or lender, for example, and an attempt to insist that they do so will be politely (probably icily politely) stonewalled. If you push too hard, they may even decline to act further - leaving you in a poor position in the middle of a transaction. 
...

...and never message the solicitor complaining they are "being rude" when all they've done is to give you advice you didn't want to hear.

Skiddaw1

BungalowBel said:

Albermarle said:

housebuyer143 said:

I made a lowish offer once and the seller didn't refuse it, just took the house off the market 🤣🤣 
It was strange, but some people are strange. 


24 hours isn't long though.

Yes as they used to say where I am from ' There's nowt so queer as folk' 

...and as they finish it off in the Black Country'....apart from thee and me, and even thee's a bit strange'. 

..My Dorset-born granny's version was 'All's queer save me & thee, and thee's queer sometimes...'

Good luck OP- I'm sure the 'right' house is out there.

prettyandfluffy

They are possibly working out whether they can afford to accept it or what their counter offer might be? If it was a flat "no" you would probably have heard straight away.  

caprikid1

Ultimately this is a negotiation between two people, many like to see this as a business transaction and it is far from it.

There is a lot of money at stake with quite often very inexperienced negotiators, over the years I have negotiated on many commercial contracts , many houses and many cars.

Try and understand the seller and what matters to them before even offering, once you know that you can start to negotiate. If the buyer has had the home for many years then playing the family element may put you in a strong position, if they are an investor getting out speed of completion is most likely important.

Ultimately if you cannot flex your approach be prepared to only achieve success in a limited number of cases.

Be clear in your own mind as to what you want to achieve, IE Moving Dates, price, items included etc. It is highly likely that there is not a deal to be done if you are not willing to move on any of the 3.

EssexHebridean

Section62 said:

EssexHebridean said:

....

- Your solicitor - while still doing everything correctly, may well not be so keen to be more helpful than straight professionalism demands. They will NOT be pushed into doing things immediately where in fact time is needed to review things, get correct responses, and check things with sellers solicitors or lender, for example, and an attempt to insist that they do so will be politely (probably icily politely) stonewalled. If you push too hard, they may even decline to act further - leaving you in a poor position in the middle of a transaction. 
...

...and never message the solicitor complaining they are "being rude" when all they've done is to give you advice you didn't want to hear.

Well, it does give the Solicitor AND their staff a few moments of often much needed light entertainment!

Bigphil1474

Op, we had an early offer on ours but about 10% below asking. We took a couple of days to turn it down as we were considering accepting it, but there was nothing to buy at that time so we decided to wait. 3 months later we accepted a higher offer (+£10k) which we accepted straight away as we had a good list of potential properties to buy. 

We offered on a house last week, and offered about 7% below asking - seller declined the offer via EA straight away. We upped the offer straight back to within 4% of asking, and it took the seller a couple of days to come back and say no and they wouldn't accept anything below asking. Strange, as it's been on the market for over 6 months but their house, their choice I suppose. 

TheJP

dander said:

Well, despite everyone here being pretty rude to me, it turns out my instincts were correct that there was something dodgy going on. After much pushing the agent discovered an issue that the vendors had previously entirely failed to disclose that means they may actually not even be legally able to sell this property. And the delay was them suddenly deciding to run around and find solutions only when they actually got an offer.

So looks like that deal is off but god knows how long I'd have had to sit around waiting to find out if I'd just accepted it was all normal and they were visiting tragic relatives in hospital.

I cant see anywhere in this thread that people were rude to you, merely people sharing experience on a subject matter.

Firstly 24 hours really isn't long at all, when i sold my house we had 2 viewings booked in within 24 hours of each other. The first viewing at 4pm on Thursday the couple made an offer 20 minutes after viewing which was slightly lower than the asking price. As the house was only on the market that day we decided to wait and see what the other potential buyers would offer, they viewed the next day and made an offer just as quick meeting the asking price but with some conditions. 

So Friday evening we have 2 offers, my wife didn't finish work until 8pm, kids to get sorted for bed, make dinner etc. We didn't discuss properly until lunch time the next day, we sought some advice from parents due to it being the first house we sold. We responded to both offers Monday afternoon. That's a snapshot of the process and i gather from your profile that this isnt the first time you have bought/sold a house and as such know how it works.

secondly what was the issue with the house that the sellers may not be able to 'legally' sell the house? A seller does not have a legal responsibility to disclose anything about their house unless asked within the conveyancing process. The house could be about to fall down and unless asked they don't have to say a word, caveat emptor...

Anyway, good luck with the search for your new house i hope you find what you are looking for.